Nonmarital childbearing and the changing American Family (Dissertation)

Citation: Musick, Kelly (2000) Nonmarital childbearing and the changing American Family (Dissertation).
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Nonmarital childbearing and the changing American Family (Dissertation)
Tagged: uw-madison (RSS), wisconsin (RSS), sociology (RSS), demography (RSS), prelim (RSS), qual (RSS), WisconsinDemographyPrelimAugust2009 (RSS)

Summary

Facts: - 1 in every 3 children is born outside the marriage (Martin et al. 1999) 20% of white, 40% of Hispanics and 70% of Blacks; - Unmarried mothers tend to be older (Ventura et al 1995), to have other children (Bumpass and Raley 1995), and to be living with a partner at the time of their child's birth (Bumpass and Wu 2000); - 2/3 of the nonmarital births are to women over twenty and half are second or higher order parity; - RACE and ethnicity: evidence suggests that blacks and Hispanics might be more likely than whites, independently of socioeconomic differences, to plan births outside the marriage; - Education: There is a inverse relationship between education and nonmarital fertility this might be related with contraceptive efficacy and acceptability of childbearing outside the marriage; - Cohabitation: About 40% of the recent unmarried births occurred within cohabiting unions. Indeed the increase in unmarried childbearing over the past decade has been almost completely associated with cohabiting two-parent families (Bumpass and Lu 2000). Cohabitation is closer to marriage as setting for childbearing among the previously married, blacks, Hispanics and less advantaged whites. COHABITORS ARE MORE LIKELY THAN SINGLE WOMEN TO PLAN BIRTHS AND LESS LIKELY THAN MARRIED WOMEN. The dominant childbearing pattern for blacks is outside any coresidential union, marital or cohabiting. - Childhood family structure: spending time in a single-parent family during the childhood increases the risk of nonmarital fertility, net of socioeconomic status. - Family background controls: parental education, low income and income instability during the childhood significantly increase the likelihood of a premarital birth; - Fertility controls: respondent's age, parity, duration since last birth, planning status of the last birth may also influence birth intentions. Findings using 1995 NSFG: - Nearly half of all nonmarital births are planned 39% single and 54% cohabitors; - There is no racial/ethnical difference in the likelihood of having a planned birth by race and ethnicity; - Nonmarital fertility rates are highest among women in their late teens and early twenties, and older women are more likely to plan their births than younger women. Women with children are more likely to have subsequent births and to plan them.